Machu Picchu is four hours from Cusco. Patagonia is four days from anywhere.
Which side of Iguazu to walk, what the Uyuni jeep costs, whether the Sacred Valley beats a second day in Cusco. Reviewed, priced and timed.
Iguazu Falls, both sides in one dayIguazu Falls: Full-Day Tour of Brazil & Argentina Sides★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · from $63
Five bookings the whole continent gets planned around.
What each one costs, how long it takes, and what the travellers who went say about it.
01The Inca dayFrom Cusco: Full-Day Group Tour of Machu PicchuThe train, the bus up the switchbacks and a guide inside the citadel. The entry slot is the part that has to be booked first.
02MedellínComuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street FoodComuna 13 is reached by outdoor escalators and read through its murals. The guides grew up on those stairs.
03Ice at the bottomPerito Moreno Glacier & Optional Boat CruiseFive kilometres of glacier front that calves while you stand there. The boat takes you in under it.
04The salt flatDay Trip to Uyuni Salt FlatsWhite to the horizon in the dry months. Flood it between December and March and the whole thing turns into a mirror.
05Rio in an hourSugarloaf Cable Car Official TicketTwo cable-car stages up Sugarloaf. Go late and the city lights come on while you are at the top.
Pick the country first. The rest of the itinerary follows from it.
Peru for the Inca sites, Brazil for the coast and the falls, Colombia for the cities, Argentina and Chile for the ice at the bottom. Eight starting points, and the days out that justify each one.
South American cities are read on foot, from a cable car, or not at all.
Medellín rebuilt itself around escalators and gondolas. Cartagena keeps everything inside a wall. Buenos Aires wants a whole afternoon and then dinner at eleven. Three kinds of city day, and what it costs to join each.
Everything above three thousand metres is a different holiday.
The Andes run the length of the continent and the best of it is walked. Inca terraces at 3,400 metres, a striped ridge above Cusco that only cleared of snow a decade ago, a canyon twice the depth of the Grand Canyon, granite towers at the bottom of Chile.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in South America.
The whole South American catalogue →The tours that fill first across the continent, with what they cost and how long they take.
1
Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food
Join a small group of up to 10 for a four-hour visit to Comuna 13, traveling by metro, cable car, bus, and foot. Guides such as Natalia, Santiago, Martin, and Melina explain the neighborhood’s past, graffiti, coffee, dance, and daily life. The tour includes transport, coffee, an arepa with cheese, and one drink.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
6-Stop Highlights of Rio with Lunch
from $130
3
Christ the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado Train
from $45
4
Sugarloaf Cable Car Official Ticket
from $46
5
Historic Center and Getsemaní Shared Walking Tour
from $12
6
Perito Moreno Glacier & Optional Boat Cruise
from $80
7
Rosario Islands Catamaran with Lunch and Snorkel
from $107
8
Half-Day Rocinha Favela Walking Tour
from $35
9
Bicycle City Tour
from $19
Here the rivers are the roads and the islands are the reward.
Angra dos Reis by schooner, the Rosario Islands off Cartagena, the Amazon in a boat slung with hammocks, reed islands that float on Titicaca. A good part of this continent only opens up from a deck.
- 1Perito Moreno Glacier & Optional Boat Cruisefrom $80
- 2Rosario Islands Catamaran with Lunch and Snorkelfrom $107
- 32-Hour Sunset Cruisefrom $31
What a day out costs in South America, band by band.
Every priced tour on the site, sorted by what it costs a head. The continent stays cheap right up to the moment a permit or an internal flight is involved.
City walks, cable cars, museum entries and the market mornings that fill a whole morning.
The standard full day: Iguazu from both sides, the Sacred Valley loop, a Mendoza bodega run, the boat out to the islands.
Machu Picchu with the train, Galápagos days, glacier ice-walks and the multi-day salt-flat jeeps.
Three South American days with no equivalent anywhere.
Beaches and old towns exist on every continent. Ten thousand square kilometres of salt crust, an archipelago where nothing runs away from you, and a lake with villages built out of reeds do not.
The Uyuni Salt Flats
Ten thousand square kilometres of salt crust, left behind by a lake that dried out tens of thousands of years ago. In the dry months it is blinding white and flat enough that a photograph loses all sense of scale, which is why every jeep carries props. From roughly December to March a few centimetres of water sit on the surface and the flat turns into a mirror. Jeeps leave from Uyuni town, and overnight buses run down from La Paz.
- 1Day Trip to Uyuni Salt Flats★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 602 reviews
- 2From La Paz: Uyuni Salt Flat Tour & Overnight Roundtrip Bus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 327 reviews
- 3Uyuni tour express from La Paz by bus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 172 reviews
The Galápagos Islands
Every landing site is walked with a licensed naturalist on a route the national park sets, which is the reason the animals still ignore people. Sea lions sleep across the jetties, marine iguanas sneeze salt onto black rock, and the boobies nest beside the path rather than away from it. The itinerary your boat is licensed for decides what you actually see, so it matters more than the month you go.
- 1Day Tour to Santa Fe Island and Hidden Beach with snorkeling and fishing★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 78 reviews
- 2Giant Turtle Watching and Lava Tunnels Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 60 reviews
- 3Full Day Tour Gualaceo, Chordeleg, and San Bartolomé from Cuenca★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 55 reviews
The Reed Islands of Titicaca
The Uros build their islands out of totora reed, layer on layer, and add a fresh course every few weeks as the underside rots into the lake. The ground gives under your feet. Boats leave Puno on the Peruvian shore and Copacabana on the Bolivian one, and the crossing is half the point: this is the highest navigable water on earth, and the light off it at altitude is unlike anything at sea level.
- 1From Puno: Uros, Amantaní & Taquile Islands 2-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 452 reviews
- 2La Paz: Full Day Trip to Copacabana and Isla del Sol★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 400 reviews
- 3From Puno: Floating Islands of the Uros Half-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 394 reviews
Four South American bookings that will not wait.
Most of this continent can be arranged from a hostel desk the night before. These four run on daily caps, park permits and a wet season that decides what the ground under you looks like.
- 01From Cusco: Full-Day Group Tour of Machu PicchuEntry is capped every day and sold by timed circuit. The early slots, and the Huayna Picchu add-on, go months ahead of the date.
- 02Cusco: 4-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with AccommodationThe classic trail runs on a fixed daily permit count, porters included, and closes for maintenance every February. Nobody talks their way on.
- 03From Hanga Roa: Rapa Nui Culture Sightseeing TourOne airline flies to Rapa Nui and it leaves from Santiago. Everyone arriving also needs a park ticket, and the moai platforms are entered with a guide or not at all.
- 04Day Trip to Uyuni Salt FlatsThe mirror only exists while the flats are flooded, roughly December to March. Outside that window it is white crust, which is a different photograph entirely.
Your first day at 3,400 metres should not be a hike.
Cusco sits at 3,400 metres, La Paz at 3,600, Puno on the Titicaca shore at 3,800. Arriving from sea level, the first day belongs to flat ground and short hours. The Sacred Valley floor is some 600 metres lower than Cusco and a far kinder place to sleep, a city walk is plenty, and a museum is at whatever height you landed at.
Ceviche at noon, asado at eleven at night, coffee picked that morning.
Lima cures fish in lime for ten minutes and calls it lunch. Buenos Aires takes beef through nine courses. On the Colombian coffee axis you can pick, pulp and cup on the same farm before breakfast is over. Book the market walk early and the parrilla late.
By country, from the Caribbean coast down
By kind of day - summit, river, city or table
Lima to Atacama: the run most first trips end up doing.
Lima
Cusco
Machu Picchu
Puno
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